Horror in Holcot

Inadvertant Infamy

Yes, I know it’s Saturday, but a digital picket is still a picket.

Once again, I find myself working through the trial records of 19th century Northamptonshire. I’m only looking at interpersonal violence, getting a flavour of what was acceptable and what was not. At the time of writing, the charges against men account for almost 90% of all the charges. Most of these crimes are relatively minor, but every now and then, a homicide comes to light.

This is one of them.

Richard Addington was born in Holcot in June 1834. By 1863, both his parents were dead, and he went to Northampton to work as a shoemaker. He met Mary Webb there. She was the same age, from Caldecote. They married in June 1863, at St Edmunds church in Northampton. They moved back to Holcot soon after.

In Holcot, they lived in a fairly new, two-up-two-down cottage. Theirs was one of four houses backing onto a courtyard, with a fifth house facing them across the court. Richard worked as a shoe finisher, and Mary stayed at home with their children. The first child, Mary, died in 1866, aged two. Two boys followed: Jesse, born at the very end of 1865, and George, born in the autumn of 1868.

The marriage was said to be generally happy. Richard was said to be a loving and attentive husband, and his wife a cheerful woman.

But Richard was a drinker, and a jealous man. Aren’t they always? The neighbours knew that he sometimes gave her a slap, but this was nothing unusual. Richard was described as being without reason when he was drunk, and Mary was terrified that he would ‘meddle’ with her. It’s difficult to be sure what she meant, but all things considered, it seems likely that Richard was in the habit of raping his wife when he was drunk.

So, when he was drunk, Mary would leave, refusing to be locked in the house with him. She would return when he sobered up. But as a neighbour told the inquest, Richard was never sober for more than a few hours. Sober or drunk, Richard was convinced his wife was having sex with half the men in the village, a baseless belief. He accused the parish constable. He accused his own brother.

On 29th May 1871, a club feast was held in Holcot at the White Swan, and Richard seemed strange, and distracted. Something had upset him, but he never explained what it was. After his dinner, he went on a bender. He was kicked out of the Chequers pub at midnight, and he staggered home. He was seen arguing with Mary, and she refused to go into the house with him - he picked her up and carried her inside. She came back out, he carried her back in, screaming. She then fainted, and Mrs Brown, who lived next door and was alarmed by the sudden silence, went in to check on her.

The next morning, Mary took her ducks to the pond around 9am. Richard was already at the pond, and he told Mary he would leave the country. She told him she would not go with him, although this conversation did not appear to be an argument according to the man who overheard it. Together, they went to the Chequers, along with their two sons, and Richard drank half a pint of beer. He gave a little taste to their two boys. The four of them returned home together, and their neighbours - Mrs Warren and Betsy Harris - saw them chatting in the yard.

Then, Mary refused, again, to go into the house with him.

He swept her up like a child, carried her in as she screamed, and closed the door.

Two minutes later, she staggered out with her throat cut.

O Mrs Warren, my husband has cut my throat! I shall die!

Poor Mrs Warren was only staying in Holcot to help her freshly widowed sister out; she cannot have imagined that she’d have to deal with a murder. Mary’s wound began to spurt blood as she spoke. Four men carried Mary into Mrs Warrens’ sister’s house to dress the wound. Richard, who knew Mrs Warren well, followed. Mary spoke to him:

My dear husband, you have killed me; you have cut my throat; I shall die!

And Richard agreed, showing Mrs Warren a previously hidden stab wound to Mary’s abdomen. He said he was glad he’d done it, and that he should have done himself too. Another neighbour, Susan Lillyman, who knew the family well, arrived. This house was rapidly filling up with women, as well as the parish clerk.

Mary was fading fast by this point, barely able to speak, but Richard demanded that she forgive him, saying that it was her fault:

Mary! You did not offer to hinder me from doing it!

Dying, she forgave him. It was the last thing she said.

The parish constable took charge of Richard. He was subsequently arrested by a policeman who came in from Walgrave, and taken to Northampton. On the way, he said

I hope they hang me as soon as they possibly can, so that I can meet her again

Meanwhile, the doctor had arrived in Holcot. He found Mary pulseless and insensible, and tried to revive her with brandy (because vasodilation is definitely the best treatment for haemorrhage…) but she died soon after. He then undressed her and examined her body.

Richard had stabbed Mary with a standard shoemaking knife, a stubby weapon, but deadly sharp. It appeared that he’d stabbed her in the front room, followed her through the house to the kitchen, and stabbed her again. She’d been stabbed once in the left lung, once in the left abdomen, once in the jaw and very deeply on the right hand: a defensive wound. The throat wound was small, under two inches across, but terribly deep. The wounds to her chest, abdomen and throat were all individually fatal: she had no chance.

The inquest was held the following morning, at the Chequers pub, now a private house. The entire village appears to have attended, and Richard was also there. He was given the opportunity to question every witness, but declined. The jury found a verdict of wilful murder by Richard Addington, and the coroner drew up the warrant accordingly. Richard went back to prison to await his next court appearance.

He did not have to wait long. Justice was swift at this time, mind-bogglingly so by modern standards. He appeared before the magistrates privately, the hearing taking place within the gaol. Richard wept throughout the examination of the witnesses. He gave no account of himself, except to say

I have done this deed and wish to suffer for it

He was remanded. The summer assizes were held on 12-14th July 1871. Richard’s case was the first to be heard, and it took two days The defence tried an insanity plea. Only a madman would accuse his own brother of adultery with his wife. Only a madman would accuse the parish constable. Since 1868, Richard had often been strange in his manner, and would say slightly mad things, but nobody had thought he was mad enough to consult a doctor, nevermind have him sent to an asylum. They tried to put words in Mary’s mouth, saying that by forgiving him, she accepted that the murder was an insane act. They suggested that the crime was one of manslaughter.

The prosecution rejected this. Either Richard committed murder, or he committed murder while insane. Richard’s constant pleas to be allowed to be hanged for his crime ran contrary to the M’Naghten rules: did he know what he’d done? Yes. Did he know if it was wrong? Yes. Therefore, he was not insane.

The judge summed up and agreed with the prosecution: the only question was one of sanity. The jury took ten minutes to find him guilty of murder. Richard said nothing, and was condemned to death.

Richard’s brothers, a doctor and even the rector of Holcot tried to have his sentence commuted on account of insanity. They tried to pin his madness on an old head injury (which his own doctor testified had no effect at trial). They visited the Home Office in person to try and persuade the Home Secretary. The Home Secretary, however, never accepted in-person mercy petitions, preferring to make his judgement based on paperwork. They harassed members of the jury to try and get them to write to the Home Secretary. Opinion pieces in the newspapers wondered if Richard’s crime was really murder. Surely, such an action was MORALLY manslaughter, even if it was TECHNICALLY murder? He didn’t MEAN it. They bemoaned the fact the hanging was due to take place in private, the first private execution in Northamptonshire, and hoped that a reprieve would be forthcoming.

But it was not. The jury made no petition for mercy, not at the trial and not when pressured to by the Addington family. The judge did not append any reason for a reprieve to his verdict. The execution was scheduled for 31st July, two months and one day after Richard killed his wife. A few days before his death Richard’s sons, aged five and almost three, visited him in prison.

Richard was executed at 8am in a small yard at Northampton gaol, in the presence of a dozen men. One cannot help but contrast this with the public execution of Peppermint Billy in Leicester in 1856. Despite the privacy, a crowd assembled at the prison gates. Richard was buried inside the prison walls.

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Mary Addington, like many abused women, hoped for the best. She hoped her husband would stay sober. She hoped he wouldn’t smack her about. She hoped he wouldn’t rape her. Because when he was sober, he was lovely.

But when he was drunk, he was sexually jealous and sexually abusive. And when he killed her, he was sober. Alcohol played a part here, but it was not an excuse.

The Addingtons lived in a small, close-knit community. Their female neighbours knew what was going on, and were willing to intervene to protect Mary, but they could not protect her from four swift stabs with a knife.

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There is a sad postscript to this story. George Addington was only two when he was orphaned. It’s not clear whether he and Jesse were present at the time of the murder. However, they were with their parents ten minutes before it took place, so chances are they were present.

George and his brother were raised by Mary’ s parents. He grew up, married, and took a job in a brewery. His mother’s murder was often in the local press - an unexpected infamy, brought up virtually every time anyone was executed. It was not a story one could escape in Northampton, a little true crime claim-to-fame.

In March 1932, a few months after the sixtieth anniversary, George gassed himself at work, after appearing depressed and brooding for some time.
The coroner, when ruling the death a suicide, commented

“I know something about this case, not reflecting against him in any way at all, but which might have caused him trouble and worry at this particular time, which happened many years ago, and about this time, he got distressed. I am satisfied he was not answerable for his action.”

Mary Addington

1834-1871